Somewhere in the Middle
by ivybluesummers
Summary: On the brink of losing himself, Kogure finally realizes how he should free himself from illusion, desperation and solitude... it's somewhere in the middle and it's the hardest place to be.


_standard disclaimers apply;shounen-ai, some offensive language, nothing really to hurt. i edited this one because of some reasons; this fic is actually a sequel to my previous one called "free all angels" but i erased it due to its perversion. i'dpost the former in edited version... or not. reviews welcome. btw, this fic if formerly titled "free all angels: somewhere in the middle"._

* * *

"_Let's meet. Tonight."_

"_Meet? Why?"_

"_Nothing. Let's meet. Tonight."_

"_Tonight? My body is aching. I can't go anywhere."_

"_I'll pick you up there."_

"_Would you?"_

_The other line was silent._

"_I'm picking you up. Nine. Is it okay for you?"_

"_I don't mind."_

It now must've been midnight, Kogure thought, his eyes tipping off the rest of his senses. Yawning hazily, he stood up from the couch of their living room, standing and walking as if he had a purpose to really do so. Not that he cared anyway. Donned in faded jeans and shirt, and in his sneakers, he gently clutched the keys and strolled towards the door, making feeble noises, and as the door shut, a thought reminded him about something. Looking up the cerulean sky, he sighed.

"Am I very far?"

* * *

**SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE**

**

* * *

**

It must've been around two in the morning, Kogure thought, and walking down the street he shivered at the slightest touch of the cold wind, his sneakers making quasi-penetrating sounds on the asphalt. His clothes feel stained at the empty but cold wind drowsing on the streets, passing emptiness and passing pain. Like any far-away stranger would do, his gait now towards the park, he set out to buy some more emptiness and solitude and spill it in his heart until there are no more.

Sitting beside an old tree – Kogure didn't know what it is – his fingers crept on the pockets of his jeans and a pack of cigarettes started to feast in his eyes. Preparing the lighter, which he has been playing while walking, he lit the cigar, orange hues and misty nicotine mingling together, only to be thrown away by the same person who bought it. The wasted cigarette flew into the air as Kogure chocked at the strange and irritating sensation on his throat. So that's how all first timers feel, he thought. Sighing to gain momentum, he fixed himself by the bench.

So Sendoh didn't come to pick him up. It wasn't that he was expecting something out from the senseless conversation in the telephone the other night – it was something to hold on to when everything seems to breathing a different kind of air, a different kind of oxygen. Restless as he is, he tried figuring out why the spike-haired lad didn't come to his house the other night. He was out yesterday walking for home from basketball practice – of course he had to inch himself far away from Mitsui – and down by alley, he saw a big black car just outside a grocery store. Of course it was Sendoh. It was the same car that brought Kogure to Sendoh's apartment, the same car that led them into having sex. Kogure could swear he waved at the spike-haired lad, but he guessed he was just too ordinary, a bad disguise to be exact for Sendoh to even notice.

Kogure tried hard not to cry, but actually he did, now on his knees on the park. Crying like a lost child, crying as if the world was going to end. Everything didn't matter to him anymore. Anyone don't matter to him anymore. He tripped hard on this emotional landslide, just as he is now in the park, falling on the ground, somewhere in the middle of freeing himself amidst every corner of desperation and embarrassment.

Somewhere in the middle. And it's the hardest place to be.

* * *

"Damn it Hanamichi, I thought I've taught you how to dribble!", Ayako rushed towards Sakuragi to thump her handy fan on the redhead, but Hanamichi ran too fast for the sophomore lass to chase. Giving up, she sat down next to Akagi, who seem to be very preoccupied with the way he was staring at his playing teammates. A shout then pierced Ayako's ears.

"Break time!"

Kogure could only nod at the realization it was recess. Taking off his glasses, he ran towards Akagi. "Yeah, I know Kogure, go or the redhead will chain you in this gym,"

Smiling at the captain's consent, he walked towards the locker room to fix himself before going home. Alas, there goes Mitsui blocking the door, with Ryota conversing with him. Why was the scene unfortunate for the brown-eyed lad he didn't know.

"No, must be the taekwondo. All it mostly uses is offensive kicks, but I dunno if they have more to that. I prefer karate," said Ryota, who was now paving his way for Kogure. Mitsui overlaid, too, and Kogure smiled, anticipating the nonchalance of the scar-faced lad for reaction. It was the same nonchalant look ever since that day. That painful day.

Taking off his sneakers, he hears the word Mitsui spoke. Every little word: Aikido helps soothe the body and mind while defending the body from any attacker at the same time. He wasn't eavesdropping at all, he kept mumbling on his mind, but the noise outside the locker room keeps on getting louder, as if the scar-faced lad was really intending to make his voice sound either too loud or too arrogant, too harsh or too bragging. Whatever it is, Kogure could only keep his eyes from crying as he clutched on his bag, ready to turn the knob of the door, when suddenly his lungs started to pulsate.

* * *

"Hey captain,"

"What?" Akagi stared at the worried eyes of Ayako, expecting the question the girl would be asking.

"I'm worried about Kogure-sempai. He seems to be skipping the rest of the practice, and... well... um,"

"Pay no heed, Ayako, must be his studies."

"Maybe, but it's kinda farfetched, don't you think? I mean, he's one of the brightest student here."

"As much as I want to delve on that matter deeper, Ayako, I can't. Let's just focus how we'd win the tournament. Kainan, by the way, offers a practice match next week."

"I saw Kogure on the park smoking."

Akagi closed his eyes for a bit, shockingly dreamy at the words the sophomore girl uttered. He knew. He knew Kogure was smoking, and as far as he can remember, it was one and a half week since the brown-eyed lad started smoking. "Like I've said, Ayako," he finally opened his eyes. "I don't want to delve deeper on that matter."

* * *

Kogure's body is now slouched on one of the benches that lay beside the walls of the locker room, his head feeling dizzy and his lungs feeling choked. Never was that brown-eyed boy, thought that smoking was a good solution, hanging his body with the nicotine sparks – and going to the side of almost addiction, giving his lungs heaves of nicotine – yes, he thought, too, it was gross, but what can he do? Imagine as if nothing is really happening? Seemingly feeling cheaper out of himself, knowing that his will has no capacity to hope more ways to escape than to realize the reality of the painful string bean love, assuming to be the man with the golden gun to put a nickel bullet in his head, thinking Kogure knows so much. And in fact, he knows so much.

* * *

Kogure lay flat on his bed, the night eating up his consciousness. Or was it the other way around? Kogure still wasn't asleep, and he was sure he can smell nicotine on his room. Tomorrow he must clean up his room, or else his mom would sensationalize the pain a mother feels when a son takes the wrong path in life. Well, exaggeratingly of course.

Kogure wondered why the world in its intimate realms seemingly passed him by. No, it wasn't seemingly at all, but a total exclusion of his existence. Just as he hoped to be worthy of his attempts to escape this exclusion, he always fails. Even that Sendoh thing failed. And he thought that he was meant live that way, but he couldn't just imagine the scene, and somewhere within himself is something that keeps on harking back on the things that simply made him happy. He should've kept his feelings to Mitsui so as not to compromise their friendship. On the contrary, he cannot just keep himself under rug swept knowing how lovely it would be to tell what you feel, to express your yearning for someone you'd hold on to when it seems like the world has given up on you. No wonder why Kogure keeps on thinking in the second perspective – he isn't like this anymore, the former optimistic and the ever hopeful, but he thought, maybe flowers are also meant to wither? That there exist in the world things beyond our control, which in the first place should never be controlled. How he missed Mitsui, how he missed Sendoh. But which is which?

Dreaming about heaven with Mitsui, whether the scar-faced lad would finally accept the fact that Kogure loves him in terms unimaginable. Dreaming about heaven with Sendoh, whether living with eyes half-open to truth, bent and broken from escaping the wrath of Mitsui's homophobia. But which is which?

Maybe he had wished for something impossible? That he wanted too much of something, that he wanted answers beyond what the world can offer. And in all of these, everything within him screams for more, yells for more of dreams until they spill over to cover up Kogure's miseries.

* * *

Kogure was in the library and didn't come to practice. It wasn't that he was disinterested with practicing, or basketball even – he wanted to something to keep him from smoking, keep him from seeing Mitsui and keep him from wishfully thinking. He thought he studying was a good solution, he thought studying would be his escape from somewhere in the middle but little did he know, little did his mind know – he keeps on crucifying himself.

So Hanamichi and Rukawa have been getting it on since the past few months just after the Inter High. He was sure even if he was eavesdropping drunk, and to be sure – he spied on them. Yes, they were dating. "I'm happy for them," Kogure whispered and few students looked at him in bewilderment.

Kogure then showed an apologetic face and continued nodding down as if he was reading. It's funny how he endeavors to forget his pain and remember the happiness of others, only to realize and go back again to the one thing he has been escaping – pain. It hurts too much to realize that he was alone and everyone is happy. And it seems to him it would go on and on.

Every eye in the library seems to be looking at Kogure, to his perspective that is. He wanted so much to pull those eyes from their sockets, only to be afraid of what it would lead – students with no eyes? Students angry at him? Such as these instances make his stomach fill itself with desert sand and basketball balls, and it figures now how he tries to be brave enough to face reality when all along he has been afraid of it, trying to escape from it.

So yes, he's been looking for someone to save him from this reality, some knight in shining armor beneath all his disguise, his painful revelry. He has been looking for so long, only to realize again how painful reality could be – just what this metaphysical pain needs, like a vampire – another victim of pain.

Closing the book he hadn't read for the whole four hours, he started fixing up his things and put it in his bag and prepared to go home. He's like a puppy looking for love, bearing in mind he wouldn't have someone unless they see him pained.

* * *

"He should realize that there's no pain at all," Ayako could almost cry as Akagi told more and more of Kogure's journey towards pain and destruction.

"It's because we all have the will to be. There's nothing to cage him with emptiness but he keeps on thinking that it is the other way around, and Kogure is having a hard time from realizing it."

"He's crucifying himself, we should help him Akagi-sempai."

"We should not. Let him discover it. We are responsible for ourselves after all," Akagi picked up his gym bag, signaled Haruko to come with him and prepared to go home.

* * *

"Make me believe in you,"

A blinding light shrouded everyone in the room and the two lovers can only hold their hands as they wait for the light to fade away. "You're one thing true," the other said, and cloud started to mold a sword-like image. The man holding the sword started to attack, and his opponent dodged and fired his glock 21, three nine-millimeter hydra bullets escaping from the muzzle, and both of them lay flat on the ground. The woman can only scream as she ran towards the dying man.

The antagonist can only curse as his life become drained on the ground, blood spilling. He tried to get up but the woman was already holding the gun, firing four more shots, completely killing him. The woman then ran towards her lover.

"I'm dying," the man whispered

"No you're not! You promised me to be here always,"

"...and I'd take you in my arms,"

"Don't speak too much or you'd lose more blood,"

"Is this heaven? Because memories keep on blissfully reeling my head,"

"Memories of us, together..." the man continued

The woman can only smile and cry at the sight, her lover smiling at him. "I don't fear death because I know we'll meet up again in forever, you know I'd be waiting for you in the end..."

"Make me believe in you," the girl whispered in her tears as the man smiled and welcomed death, and a dramatic soundtrack, the credits showing up. And Kogure could only frown at the sudden realization that the movie was over. So much for wasting his time.

And as Kogure left the theater, he could only remember the lines from the movie, sulking himself again on agonizing feeling deep within him. How can he convince himself it's going to be okay when the reality says that it's supposed to be this way? How can he believe in something true if everything inside of him are lies? How can he wait for someone in forever when there is no one in the first place? With these thoughts, Kogure marched down again towards the park.

This was beginning to be a monotonous activity for Kogure – everytime he feels like the world was giving up on him, at least on the emotional terms, he'd always go by the park and sit on those stone benches, savoring every teardrop in his eyes – alone, desperate; trying to rationalize how and why he was alone, how and why he is something like an oddity. Yes, oddity is the appropriate term – in a world where conformity plays a big part in sustaining the needs of the group, or society, it is a necessity for all of its members to conform. In social psychology they call this normative influence.

"In the first place, everyone assumes that there is already a society," Akagi said to Kogure.

As much as Akagi wants to make his brown-eyed friend stop from smoking, he cannot do so. He believes in the existential tenet of life – that the "self" is responsible for whatever it chooses to do. Both of them sat on the benches, Kogure smiling at the sarcastic tone Akagi had as he sat down.

"So you read minds now, Takenori."

"I'm just assuming."

"Oh," Kogure looked at him. Akagi can smell nicotine scents on Kogure – even his clothes. "How'd you find me anyways?"

"We've been friends for more than five years, so I think I know where you went and how you deal with what you're dealing right now."

Kogure lightly chuckled. "I guess so,"

"I'm going to get serious Kiminobu."

Kogure could only look at him in a somber manner – he called the brown-eyed lad in his first name. "I know the things you've been going through and I'm not going to contravene with what you'd do, but I just hope that you wont forget you've got friends you can count on to. You've gone far more than everyone can imagine and have testified that myself," Kogure sure saw the dark man smile.

"But whatever you do don't compromise yourself. You've been going through serious pain, you told me, about that Sendoh and Mitsui, but don't forget you still have yourself."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I meant you still have your own interests to pursue, not theirs."

"But this is what I want to pursue. It's my interest."

"Is it?"

Akagi finally stood up and patted Kogure's shoulders, waved goodbye and faded away like the conversation was just a dream inside Kogure's head. It wasn't a dream, he finally realized, and harking back on the words uttered by his friend, he is now thinking, maybe feeling, the ache that has been stabbing him like cold daggers on the Himalayan outstretch. And maybe, just maybe, he'd follow the advice given by his friend.

* * *

Kogure slouched on the sofa, alone in their living room. With a slight press on the button, the video player switched on, alongside with the television, and the movie went started. He had finally decided not to smoke, since it was bad for his health being an athlete and all. Besides, it makes his lungs pulsate which is an annoying feeling, and that it makes his breath smell bad and his clothes, too. So he decided to journey himself with another way of escaping pain – watching movies.

"You didn't care about me," the woman shouted at the top of her lungs as she pack her bags.

"I thought I could make you wonder what you could do better to make our love stronger," she continued, almost to the brink of crying. The man just stared with jaws trying to open and mouth trying to speak words that will make his girl stay, but the man could just whisper, "I... I love you..."

"You know, I still remember what you promised me, that we'd stay together and we'll weather all the storms that'll come our way, but it seems to me they are nothing but promises..."

The man can only call out his girl's name as the girl turns the knob of the door, looking back one last time at her soon-to-be ex husband. "I love you too much it hurts to stay here knowing I've got nothing in the end..."

* * *

"Break time!" Ayako shouts and her voice hollered at the gymnasium. The players let out relieved sighs, and soon the benches were filed with those basketball players, some conversing, some wiping off their sweaty bodies and some drinking water. Kogure on the other hand was in the locker, savoring his solitude one more time as he hark back on the things his tall and dark friend told him. He's done watching movies, watching the same old plot of romanticism failed either because of death or breaking up, listening to old lines he wished he have said with someone. He's thinking what else can he do – aikido seems very unnerving and untimely thing to practice. Aikido needs focus, and that's something Kogure don't have right now. So, packing up his gym bag, he went out of the locker room and ran for his escape as Hanamichi chased him, waving goodbye at his teammates, and readied himself – on a philosophy lecture.

* * *

"The whole point of affirming the inevitable society as an element of the order of the world rests on the assumption that people thrives on that kind of order, thinking that the world is made up of correlation - which, by the way, means in social psychology the linking of two separate phenomena from an assumption," a student spoke, and Kogure listened.

"Believing in life as a product of societal correlation believes that societal bases is prior to life itself," the student continued, and the debate continued.

"No, it's not necessarily the case. The society merely points out the reality that men are composed of natural phenomena regarded through communal terms. It does not dictate what man should be but rather points it out to them. Wouldn't it be much easier?"

"But don't you think an easy life is impossible?"

This time Kogure spoke. "How come?"

"The essence of life regards many realms unimaginable, and not simply adhering on the things we want to adhere. To contain our lives with those mere inventions of the society becomes, yes, easy, but its essence vanishes, its essence becomes a useless manifestation."

"What is wrong with making life easy anyway?"

"There is nothing wrong because there is no such thing as an easy life after all," Kogure listened to the words, and sighed at the kinds of thoughts swirling through his mind.

Hesitantly but finally, the brown-eyed lad raised his hand, and the lecturer uttered his name, signaling other students to look to him. "If we assume that society don't dictate what men should be but only point it out to them, what about permanence and singularity? Of uniqueness and such? And if society points it out, wouldn't the society deprive men of their lives?"

"Exactly my point, thank you very much," the student commented.

"We depend on the society because we want to see what we want to see. It does not do enough to men whose lives transcends to its journey of innocently seeking its essence, and to depend on the society in that kind of necessary obligation for us deprives us of our lives, deprives us of our innocence."

"Mr. Kogure, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Have you been attending these kinds of lecture before?"

"No, it's my first time."

"Hmm..." the old man smiled, and the lecture went surging lively, and Kogure could only smile at the kind of enthusiasm he's having as the lecture went on and on.

"What do you mean by innocence anyway," the other student asked.

* * *

"_Let's meet. Tonight."_

"_Meet? Why?"_

"_Nothing. Let's meet. Tonight."_

"_Tonight? My body is aching. I can't go anywhere."_

"_I'll pick you up there."_

"_Would you?"_

_The other line was silent._

"_I'm picking you up. Nine. Is it okay for you?"_

"_I don't mind."_

It's two in the morning in Kogure's digital clock. Two or three hours ago he tried to put himself into sleep, but the philosophy lecture on society pumped a random enthusiasm in his body, journeying himself amidst the world both of conception and perception, and at the back of his mind, his last conversation with Sendoh kept on mumbling in his awake sleep.

Two or three hours ago, his mind peeked onto the experience that is supposed to be called past. Kogure can still imagine himself mouthing Sendoh's name as the spike-haired lad thrusted inside him, thrusting in the cold room in the bed, craving and yearning for each other; his craving to be fucked raw and the spike-haired lad's yearning to be inside Kogure. The brown-eyed lad sure was smiling, and at the back of his mind, the portal of his perception, he can see himself spreading a grin. Two or three hours and counting, Kogure couldn't sleep because these thoughts were eating him out, reverberating like echoes from a haunting mantra.

Two or three hours and counting, his mind was browsing to this particular experience. A coincidence where both of them were alone and desperate to have someone, desperate to escape from solitude. Within him lies a sentiment killing him for the past few months, but fortunately or unfortunately, he's still alive, pondering on these thoughts.

For a minute or so Kogure's mind glued on the face of Akira Sendoh, the ace player of Ryonan, and it made him frustrated. Yes, it was frustration, and why it is a frustration Kogure didn't know now, and the thought of it just added another psychological ruin. He never made it to a point that time to be honest, and he felt guilty somehow. With an exasperated sigh, he turned his body on the bed, face down on the pillows.

Two or three hours ago and counting, he saw himself with Sendoh, flesh by flesh together. It made the brown-eyed boy think that if the experience is real, he wondered why he felt they were nothing but pictures, an abstract thought he found hard to comprehend.

Two or three hours ago and counting he harked back on the memory of him and Sendoh lying in the bed and having sex, a familiar scene of pleasure and euphoria. Familiar may not be the right term, but he knew it felt real. Those moans that grew louder as both of them savored the pleasure of sex, sheets coming crumpled, clothes thrown in the air, caresses that felt like electricity at the slightest touch.

His mindset targeted thoughts to satiate his need for love, yet his exploits and efforts to have this kind of love were idiotically infantile. Change is very drastic in this world, he thought. Nature has adapted to Kogure's will, to Kogure's interpretation of matters in life, unaware of his talents to mold and create reality. Two or three hours ago and counting, his mind surged down on these thoughts, seeing the effect of will in this world. Kogure finally realized change didn't happen after all, that there is no such experience of sex with Sendoh, but a conception of that experience; that he was alone and desperate to escape from solitude and Mitsui's wrath from homophobia, and to escape this pain he succumbed onto conceiving such experience, onto willing such experience. Kogure finally realized that the pain he's been escaping from wasn't pain at all; he finally realized why Sendoh didn't wave back at him; he finally realized that his body ached not from having sex but from the bottles of alcohol; he finally realized his pain and his experience from Sendoh is only the product of his mind speaking in wealthy meanings and laments, and there was nothing for the brown-eyed man to do but bury it, bury the senseless memory and invalid memory. And Kogure can only weep on the entire night on his bed, knowing it was his fault all along why he is pained and desperate, why he is suffering from the emotional roller coaster ride. And he wished the experience was all true, but sadly, it isn't.

"Let's meet. Tonight."

"Meet? Why?"

"Nothing. Let's meet. Tonight."

"Tonight? My body is aching. I can't go anywhere."

"I'll pick you up there."

"Would you?"

The other line was silent.

"I'm picking you up. Nine. Is it okay for you?"

"I don't mind."

Dandelion breeze swept over Kogure's face as he sat on the steps of their home, waiting for the ace of Shohoku Basketball Team. His woes were interrupted thanks to that pale skinned lad. He is now more or less ready to accept reality, to accept his innocence. He now accepts the fact that the conversation between Sendoh and Rukawa on the narrow alley beside the gymnasium didn't happen after all. He now accepts the fact that Rukawa and Hanamichi is still together, but he still wonders whether that spike-haired lad and the blue-eyed lad became lovers. Oh well, whatever the answer is, it doesn't change the fact that he's alone, desperate not to be alone. He's somewhere in the middle of the real and the reel, somewhere between illusion and reality, somewhere in the middle of sad frustration and consoling realization. Somewhere in the middle and it's the hardest place to be.

"Sempai."

Kogure turned his head to find Rukawa breathing heavily, obviously because of running hastily. It's midnight, and still the dandelion breeze on his skin felt colder, felt more colder by the second. "What is it that you want?"

"Sempai, I..."

"What is it?" Kogure tried to smile but he can't, endeavoring as much as possible not to cry.

"I... I have a friend."

"Yes?"

"He wanted me to tell you this."

"Now?"

"Yes, he's quite annoying."

"Before that, I can't keep on asking this,"

"What?"

"Do you have a relationship, I mean intimate relationship with Hanamichi?"

"Yes."

Kogure wasn't surprised. "I'm happy for you both."

"Thank you."

"So what is it that you wanted to tell me?"

"You know Akira Sendoh."

The tone of Rukawa's voice didn't seem to cue a question, but a closed-ended rhetoric.

"Yes, why?"

"He... he wants to..." A shadow came out behind the blue-eyed lad, the moonbeams glimmering on the glossy spikes of tresses and pale skin of the man. And as the man smiled at the innocent yet broken Kogure, it all seemed to be an illusion, it all seemed coincidental. Sendoh smiled even more, with shy demeanors manifested by his awkward body languages. It all seemed to be an illusion and coincidental for Kogure, but fortunately or unfortunately, it was one thing true.

"He wants to get to know you _more_."

* * *

**a/n: **some of the scenes and dialogues are inspired from songs from Tori Amos, Dishwalla, Switchfoot, Jet, Chantal Kreviazuk and Nickel Creek. 


End file.
